Sustainable design for space systems

The University of Strathclyde is seeking a candidate for a full-time position focused on sustainable design for space systems. The role involves utilizing life-cycle assessment tools in the conceptual design phase and developing innovative computational design methods, including AI applications. Key tasks include literature reviews, method development, and trade-off analysis between performance and sustainability. The position was posted recently and does not specify any degree requirements.
In early November 2024, LignoSat, credited as the first satellite incorporating wood as a material, was launched to the International Space Stations. As space activities intensify both in the number of launches and spacecraft launched, considering how we can ensure spacecraft are built in a sustainable manner will be critical in complementing ongoing space sustainability efforts, where the focus so far has mostly been in addressing the crowding of orbits.

This project targets this challenge by 1) studying how life-cycle assessment tools, typically designed for evaluating implemented systems, can be used as early as in the conceptual design phase and 2) developing computational design methods that “think” out of the box to propose novel sustainable designs that can still survive the space environment and achieve space mission goals (Earth-observation, communications, robotics, others?). By computational design methods we mean both traditional methods and novel ones taken advantage of recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Key contributions expected:

- a literature review of the state-of-the-art for early life-cycle assessment estimation methods for spacecraft design

- develop or improve/adapt existing LCA estimation methods for the conceptual design phase, and validate method on two or three case studies

- develop/investigate computational design methods to synthesize “novel” sustainable designs (e.g. through generative design, or generative AI)

- trade-off analysis between spacecraft performance and sustainability (if any)